Encore show: Animal Rights Issues in Mexico, and Speciesism and Language: Exploring How Violence is Embedded in Our Words

Listen to this show here!

To start the show, Alison is back from her travels in Hawaii, and tells us about the many animals she had the pleasure of seeing and meeting while on her trip, including dolphins, sea turtles and asian mongeese!

Marco Antonio Regil, television host and animal rights activist

Our feature interview is with media superstar Marco Antonio Regil. Marco is known for hosting popular Spanish TV game shows Family Feud, Minute to Win It, The Price is Right, and Generation Gap. He also has a long career dedicated to animal rights, both human and non-human.

Among his many awards, in 2015 Marco was given the Humanitarian of the Year Award by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). And just last week in Mexico City, he was awarded the Iberia American Medal for his work on behalf of animals.

Marco has one of the most interesting “going vegan” stories we’ve ever heard and he is instrumental for bringing PETA Latino into existence. In this interview, he tells us about some of the animal rights issues facing the Latino community in Mexico (such as the electrocution of street dogs, and the end of wild animals in circuses), and he tells us about his vegan activism and ethical philosophies towards the way that our society sees animals. He is working to change the laws in Mexico surrounding animals, where they are seen as “things” and not living beings. He also tells us his thoughts about violence against animals in children, and how violence towards non-human animals perpetuates violence as a whole in the world.

“Violence is violence. Peace is peace.”

Speciesism and Language: The Exploration of How Violence and Speciesism are Embedded in Our Words and Idioms

Reprogramming our brains requires us to change what we say as well as creating new ways of thinking.

“Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny”. Ghandi said this, and if this is true, then we need to be concerned with how we refer to non-human animals.

Animal idoms are in our language everywhere, and in this segment, we explore our own usage of them and dissect and learn how these words can hurt and subconsciously (or more blatantly) perpetuate violence against animals.